Battered
by jenni3penny
Summary: Cal gets his ass kicked. Morphine, comfort, silliness and seriousness. Callian. "Bet you taste like waitin' room coffee right now." / "You're stoned out of your mind."
1. Chapter 1

Breathing burned like a son of a bitch. That much he'd sussed out. That and he was pretty sure he was only seeing the world primarily through his right eye. The left one seemed a bit smallish in comparison, squinted closed and feeling positively mushed. There was significant pain involved with each attempt to blink it open wider. But then, trying to widen it up sort of gated the pain out of his lungs and straight shot it through his head so... win some, lose some?

Right, so... bruised up ribs (probably broken) and a black eye.

Been worse off before, really. Way worse.

At least he thought so... til he tried to stand up.

"Bleedin' fuck." He ignored how twisted and mangled up his own voice sounded through winded lungs and a scratchy throat.

Well then... add twisted up ankle to the short list.

Still, at the very least his hands still worked and he could fumble deep into his pocket for... fuck. They couldn't even leave him his cell phone? Selfish bastards - was there no sense of decency in crime these days? Common goddamn highwaymen had more morality. At the very least they woulda left him with a way out of this mess.

"Foster." He felt it breathe off his lips as he sank a little lower against the gritty cement walling, the hard pebbling making snagged catches in his jacket as he let his butt set hard onto the sidewalk. "Y'told me so, love."

She was gonna kill him. She was gonna do it slowly and meticulously and with that tone of voice that instantly had his spine jamming straight and hard in annoyance but still managed to make him look her up and down like steak to a starving man. Fuck, she was gonna eat him alive and spit him back out for gettin' jammed up in this mess. For draggin' her into it again. For puttin' her in a place of having to find a way to save his ass again...

… she _was_ gonna save his ass again, yeah? Somehow? Right?

But, to be fair, it wasn't like he'd chosen to get his ass handed to him. It'd just... happened, sorta.

It wasn't like he'd chosen the blacking out portion of the evening, either.

Really... more like it'd chosen him.

* * *

"You're in shit so deep you're gonna need waders, Lightman."

He knew that voice. Deep and thick but still sorta sing-songy in its snotty and self-righteous authority. He absolutely, for sure, knew that voice. It was warmly familiar in how cocky it broke over his cheek as stalwart forearms brooked up under his armpits, caught against his chest and lifted. Cal let off a wheezing groan and let his body lean into the equally familiar strength of one big, bad (slightly fuzzy looking) Federal Agent.

He felt his entire sense of balance shift a few feet to the left of him and he intentionally caught himself by gripping against the shoulder of Ben's suit jacket, fisting it up tightly. "Missed you."

"Bet you did." Ben Reynolds then, with suit and badge and gun. Good girl, she was. Smart girl, callin' the right man for the job. The big one with the gun. "Foster's gonna chew your ass up."

"She fumin' already?" Smiling the way he did made his jaw flick tighter and he winced, not realizing there was a swollen up bruise near his mouth til he tried to be a smartass.

"Fuming?" Reynolds grinned wide. "The woman's lit up light a goddamn Christmas tree."

"Tha's my girl." His fingers patted against Reynolds' collar and Cal lifted his head at the quizzical look the man was giving him, smirking past pain. "Love my girl."

"Yeah, okay," Ben gifted him a laugh in return, "so you got knocked in the head too, huh?"

"I do." Cal shot up between them defensively, squeezing his eyes shut against dizziness as he tried to shake the fuzz from his thoughts. "I love her."

"You should probably start with that bit," the larger man advised with what sounded like a nearly doting smile in his voice. "Maybe it'll keep her from slapping the shit out of you."

"Slapped me once." He finally blinked his eyes back open – well, the one of them at least. "She did."

"Listen - "

"Gambling... thing." Cal interrupted lamely, his body flagging forward again in a sudden exhaustion. He felt Reynolds catch him up tightly, one suited arm catching on his ribs and accidentally squeaking a pained noise out of him. The strength of the younger man's grip had viced against already abused ribs and halted his breathing.

Felt a bit like a gnawed up dog toy, actually. Minus the saliva.

"Were you covered in your own blood then too?"

Cal snorted at the question, finding that it sounded funny and awfully far away all at once. "Not that I recall."

"Well," Ben's hand lifted his head slowly, cautiously and with strong fingers wrapped on his jaw, "this time maybe your general appearance'll save you. How much can you tell me before they drug you incoherent?"

"Tell Gill I was right about Lawton," he murmured slowly, knowing the words were slurring up on him as he let his head drop forward a little. "She'll fill in the blanks."

"You gonna stick with me, Lightman?"

"Prob'ly not." He quipped his head up and suddenly swayed when nausea tunneled in on him. "Oh. Not likely, mate. I'm seein' double and in technicolor."

* * *

God, he looked horrible. Absolutely terrible.

But still, somehow... she absolutely adored the sight of him, even as rough tumbled as he looked. Because despite how swollen the side of his jaw was, how pulpy closed and battered his left eye was, it was still him. He was still solid close and warm as he tried turning his wrapped ribs and bit down a meek little whimpered noise. She watched as his hand went flat against his chest and pressed still, his head dropping back roughly into the pillow as he blew out an exhalation of obvious pain. His lungs wrangled down a breath as she moved farther into the room and she instantly saw the pale way he flattened his features. There was a slight lag to how fast he could usually mask himself and his emotions and she watched him try to focus on her face a moment, his eyes looked pinned and dazed.

"You're so beautiful." His voice was awfully airy and wispy and high pitched for how swollen and battered he looked. "Y'know that, darling? You're - "

"Compliments won't get you anywhere, Cal," Gill stalled him up gently, her hand catching against how he stubbornly reached bruised and scraped knuckles for her. "I'm mad. Deal with it."

A conciliatory sound came up his throat as he lifted his jaw higher, tugged his fingers away from hers and reached for her body again. "Bet you taste like waitin' room coffee right now."

"You're stoned out of your mind."

"Y'do, dontcha?" He finally latched against her shirt, the shoulder of the fabric ribbed up in his fingers as he tried shifting again. She palmed along the flushed skin of his forearm, letting her body settle into the chair beside the hospital bed as he kept up jittered movements.

Most definitely high on something and she didn't doubt it was Morphine, maybe Percocet.

"Cal, I haven't called Emily yet. I wanted - "

"Darling," he whispered cautiously, as though one of the attendants or nurses may hear him from all the way down the hall, "don't think m'wearin' my trousers."

Oh, thank god they'd given him a room to himself... he'd wreak havoc with a playmate.

She couldn't help but breathe out a bemused smile as he tucked her closer by the collar, his fingers fidgeting on the lowered and pulled fabric of her shirt. "You're not. They cut them off because you're an idiot."

She briefly slanted a glance down the length of him, noting that he wasn't wearing a shirt, no gown, just bandages wrapping up his ribs and a sheet that started along his hips and covered the stretch of his legs. The right leg was obviously braced still somehow, the lump his right foot made under the sheet looking larger and higher than the other.

"Tha's fortuitous. Easy access then." Cal fiddled the fabric of her shirt up into his palm, scrunched his hand into a fist and kept her tightly close as his face tried for a wry grin. "Give us a go?"

The mottling and bruising made the usual crinkled smile more a grimace than innuendo but she avoided how swollen his face looked for how teasingly bright his voice still sounded through its ramble and rasp.

"Cal."

"You'll have to be up top this round, love." His fingers gentled on her, wiped against the skin of her throat and down the center of her sternum. "Can't seem to control my arms."

Gill cocked a patient glance over how tightly close he was keeping her, how warm his palm was as it pressed flush between her breasts and just stilled there. "You're about to get a slap if you don't control your hand right now."

He was controlling his hand just fine – and she knew it.

She didn't, for an instant, put it past Cal Lightman to use physical pain and being hopped to Hell on pain medication as an excuse to cop a cheap feel.

"Can't let go - you'll remember how much I annoy you," he admitted sheepishly – rather, as near to 'sheepish' as Cal could get when he was instigating, when his fingertips were rubbing a delightful heat into her skin and his face had gone slightly paled and slack as his eyes had shut.

"It's not something I easily forget, trust me." And despite how annoying she probably should have found his teasing, she lifted her fingers into brushing the sweated strands of hair off his forehead, her thumb following after them as she frowned at how flushed he was.

"How bad is it really?" His eyes stayed closed even as he asked, even as his head turned toward her nearness and his voice quieted toward an unintentional admittance of pain. "Tell me?"

"Not the worst, not the best. You're here until I say you can leave," she offered gently, feeling his hand rest more weight into her.

He merely half shrugged as though she'd just given him the time of day. "Same for you then."

Gill panned a surprised smile over him, wrapping her fingers around his hand and catching it away from fabric, drawing his fingers off her skin and shirt so that she could curl his palm up in hers. He seemed contented as long as he didn't lose the contact, though. His thumb dug heavy pressure into the back of her hand even as the rest of his fingers lost a little of their strength and fervor.

"Are you asking me to stay?" she asked with a tease of disbelief, studying the slight parting of his lips as he exhaled. "Because usually you can't wait for me to get lost."

His eyes stayed closed even as a groaned noise came off him, "Y'get better looking - "

"Every day?" she interrupted with a half smile of affection.

"Tha's right." And he nearly smiled past the patchy bruising that marred his jaw and had started tinting the color on his cheek. "Gill?"

Distractedly her glance searched over the scrapes and bloodied marks that scattered the knuckles of his hand. "Hmmm?"

"Stole my pants. My phone."

She felt her smile go wider due to the silliness in his voice, the openly quiet trust and affection as he wiggled their hands tighter together."The phone's a loss but I have your pants."

"Oh, _really_?" The way he blinked his right eye open with the other swollen closed seemed like a morbid caricature of his usual humor and she couldn't help but bite against her bottom lip as his voice hedged lower. "Gettin' in 'em any time soon?"

He was perfectly willing to keep playing whatever games he could with her but it seemed, regardless of what he wanted, his body was traitorous to his intentions. That or the drugs were finally really kicking in and sinking him lower into unconsciousness. She realized it was probably a combination of both as his fingers reflexively twitched against hers and then suddenly squeezed their hands together tighter than before.

"Get some rest, Cal."

"Sight I'd like t'see," he mumbled at her, the combination of his slurring and accent making it nearly impossible to understand as his eyes closed again. Or, rather, it would have been to anyone else. She'd had practice at hearing him drunken, drugged, surly, giddy and goading...

"I don't doubt." Gill agreed in gentled placation as she let him wedge his fingers between hers and drag her hand childishly onto his upper torso, curling it up under the weight of his own as his breathing started falling shallow.

"You tell Em, yeah? All the good stuff, not the - "

"I will," she promised into the uncharacteristic vulnerability in his voice. "Close your eyes."

* * *

"Gill."

She was already awake (rather, still awake), had expected him to surface at some point in the night. And she'd spent a good portion of the between time catching up on poorly edited magazines. At least until she'd found a copy of some year old bestseller stuffed in one of two the cupboards along the opposite side of the small room. She'd nestled into the chair with shoes off and socked feet bridging the side of the bed, the over head light off in trade for the generic lamp beside the bed.

She'd expected him to wake up at some point and be, as usual, especially difficult.

What she certainly hadn't expected was her name so choked up through a clenched jaw. "Gillian."

She hadn't expected the two accented syllables to sound so terrified and strangled.

She hadn't expected him to try sitting up so quickly either and she reached along his arm as he grunted through a shunt of pain at the sharp movement. "Cal, relax."

A string of strong curses went hissing through his teeth and she loosened her fingers slowly, wiping up the sweat that was coating his skin. Her fingertips brushed up into the inside of his arm, the soft pulse point inside his elbow. His heartbeat was thrumming triple speed, far faster than it should have been.

"Gill?"

"Who did you think, huh?" Surreptitiously she slid the other hand down his side and lifted the plunger for the pain meds, aiming it into his lap.

"No," he disregarded it quickly, waved it off and rapidly blinked against what looked like a sway of nausea. "M'good."

"Cal - "

"Don't need 'em," he shot off, both eyes shut as his hand lifted in her direction. There was a wavering to the steadiness of his hand and she watched the shiver of his palm in shadows before he curled his fingers up in mid-air.

She watched him blindly reach along her face, fingers stretching back out so that he could palm against her cheek as his body took a slanting huff back into the mattress and pillows. "Now you're just being stubborn."

"Lawton?" He asked through his teeth, his jaw flexing at the obvious pain that had rattled through multiple battered ribs.

"In custody." Her fingers lifted off the stretch of his forearm, wiping along his tattoo before she caught his wrist and kept his hand still against the side of her face. "Ben got the security cameras from the store across the street. Clear view of Lawton taking a boot heel to your ankle and bouncing your head off the pavement."

"Need to - "

"Ria's interviewing him in the morning," she interrupted into drawing his hand down, closing it between hers as he finally turned his head into looking at her, his skin paled out. "You're staying right here."

"Ribs're done in." Frustration was evident on the entire length of him as he exhaled roughly. "And the rest? Broken?"

"Your ankle or your head?" she quipped, tipping her head to try and draw humor off him.

"She's a laugh a minute, she is," he cracked darkly between them, the pain as evident in his voice as it was in the tightness of his face.

"Grouchy." Gill accused softly, squeezing at his hand.

He snorted derision as the other hand waved over his slack lower body. "In a hospital bed."

"Not broken." The murmur went tentatively soft between them, her thumb rubbing around the scrapes on his knuckles as she intentionally lightened her tone. "Just demented."

The clench of his jaw preceded the smile that almost found his lips. "Ankle or head?"

"There you are," she smiled over him, nodding slowly into the way he blearily looked up at her, head slacked onto the pillow. "Welcome back, sweetheart."

A perplexed and legitimately surprised look took over the uninjured parts of his face and he rubbed his ear into the pillow repeatedly, as though snuggling deeper into comfort. Gill watched the repentant and sheepish smile curl on his lips, shifting the colors of his bruising before he stilled his movements and just grinned at her – much as he could anyhow.

It was so very Lightman, really - that irritating ability to be especially adorable directly after being a snide son of a bitch.

"Come over here?" His tone had softened up completely, the good eye lidded with a little bit of begging as he turned his head farther onto the flat hospital pillow. "C'mere."

"Cal - "

"Gimme a better pillow to rest my head on." She wasn't sure how, when he looked so terribly worked over, he could still look sweet and inviting and _do things_ to her pulse.

She couldn't help the smirk that took her mouth over, couldn't help pointing playfully at him as she leaned into the side of the mattress carefully. "Your head, not your hands, Lightman."

"I'll be the soul of propriety, I swear," he shushed back, hinting at mischievous as he wiggled his fingers up and dazedly lifted his head.

Her hand caught softly along his undamaged temple, kept his head up as she shifted onto the thin and generic mattress beside him. It surprised her that there wasn't more hesitancy in him as he shifted, carefully wincing his shoulders up and fitting into her as soon as she'd stretched out next to him. Gill kept her shoulders up against the head of the bed, half sitting up and letting off a light breath of laughter when he gamely dropped his head against her breasts and snugged in. Despite the way the drugs were dragging on him, despite the level of pain that was still making him seem grayed, he was still exuberant enough to happily bury his face as near to her breasts as he could. Classic Lightman...

"You call Em?" The quiet and concerned questioned just barely broke the silence, his murmuring so close to her throat that she swallowed at the feel of his breath along her skin.

She nodded as his body relaxed further into her, "She said she'd come home."

"No need."

"That's exactly what I told her," Gill agreed easily, nodding her head down against his and feeling him sigh the breath from his lungs, his body going looser. "Then I promised to make sure you don't hurt anything else."

"Stuck with ya, then?" He had to be intentionally wiping his lips on her throat. He had to be dampening her skin with the heat of his breath on purpose. Because it was driving her nuts in the good ways. Because there wasn't necessarily another moment wherein he could do it so easily and without concern – without worrying, the excuse of pain and drugs readily available as a shield. "Am I?"

She nodded slowly and lifted her jaw, letting it rub against sweated hair as he exhaled and brushed his lips on her again. "Yeah, for a day or two."

"Whatta terrible burden t'place on an invalid," he mocked, voice hashing even lower.

"Being cute isn't going to make me forget how angry I am with you and your stupidity." Gill told him gently, catching against the medical tape that had started to come undone on the wrappings along his ribs. She carefully pressed it back down, used the slow slide of her fingers to stick it back into place as he silently watched her. There was a confused but tenderly pleased half smile on his face, at least along the side of his mouth that hadn't been hurt.

One of his brows lifted, making the other eye look even stranger in the darkness. "Y'think I'm bein' cute?"

Gill sighed into how pleasantly surprised he seemed in saying it. "Right now I think you look like the Notre Dame Bell Ringer."

"Misshapen and malformed?" His head slanted back down against her on a tightened whisper, pressed weight along her collarbone as he relaxed. "You've some strange kinks, darling."

* * *

She blinked surprise when his hand jerked and curled grasping over top of hers. He shifted her hand and she watched wordlessly as he dragged both their palms down. Her lips parted to comment on the movement until she realized he was slowly but steadily and silently shifting her hand over the plunger that would release more medication. Without comment she pushed down on the mechanism and turned a look over him as she did it, noting that he was intentionally keeping his head down to avoid her searching. The lazily repetitive rub of his jaw against her collarbone kept her quiet as she dropped the plunger to the side of his thigh and then stretched her palm out against the sheet, fingers stretched out flat against his stomach. She reflexively turned farther sideways to him, lifted her knee to bend protectively over him without realizing she'd made the movement until his hand grasped into the denim of her jeans and held there.

It wasn't a movement she'd usually make (neither of them were), wasn't something she'd usually trust him with – especially when he seemingly had no filter.

Usually he'd be a wicked little shit about it, some salacious throwaway comment or teasing.

But then.. usually he wasn't silently begging her to drug his body unconscious.

"You can't keep doing this, Cal," she seethed over him quietly, unable to keep the words down.

He kept his stubbled jaw rubbing at her, the movement seeming both innocently childish and compulsive at once. "Doin' what?"

Gill drew in a long breath, fingertips pressing against his stomach to keep his attention. "Scaring me like this."

He looked up at her with an unnatural stillness, his body motionless as he blinked the one good eye at her and searched over her face in the light from one tacky lamp. Gill let him study her a moment, held the patient pattern on her features as he frowned slightly, the mottling and bruising making the motion look raggedly painful. A grunted sound came up his throat as he squeezed the denim up into his fingers and tugged at her, pulled her leg farther up his hip so that he could squeeze against the bend of her knee.

"I'll do better, darling," he assured softly, imploring her with a nod and doubled pressure against her knee.

She sighed into how sincere he seemed even as his voice had gone looser, "I mean it, Cal."

"So do I." His hand was slightly desperate in pulling at her again, digging in stubbornly so that her jeans were wadded in his palm as he turned his mouth purposefully close to hers. "Be a good girl. Gimme _some_ sympathy, eh? I'm wounded."

"A pity kiss? To make it better?" she asked dryly, brow arched over him.

"Not pity there in your eyes though, is it?" The accusation had some strength to it, his voice graveled before he swallowed, his head lifting so that his nose brushed against hers and his lips aimed a breath closer. "Something warmer, yeah?"

He was... absolutely correct.

For as often as he said he was blind to her – he had considerably terrific sight of her sometimes.

"It has to stop," she whispered into his attempt at flirtation, the surprisingly calculated movement he was making even as his eyes went farther hooded by the meds. "Whatever it is that makes you do this to yourself. You put yourself in these situations that - "

He gave up patience, gave up pretense, gave up waiting her out. He ditched so called 'propriety' like it was trash on the street. And he did it with the unapologetic brush of his lips against hers, a slow return so that his tongue could taste along her bottom lip and drive into her mouth. She let him, though. Let him suck along her tongue and groan out a murmur of "Crap coffee. Toldja." as he ended the kiss.

She let him do all of it - and it sure as hell wasn't out of pity.

Not when he was safe and still and warm, cradled up with her and out of danger.

Not when the smell of him, completely safe, was living in her lungs.

"Why you still here, Gill?"

She blinked past the dry sound of his voice, how nearly distrusting it was even as she wondered if it was the taste of his blood on her tongue, if she'd missed finding a split in his lip or a cut somewhere. "Because I'm worried about you."

"And why?" Cal murmured, letting his head lag back down along her collarbone, his fingers still ribbing and rubbing at the fabric of her pants as he huddled closer.

His hand shook a little even as he seemed to focus on the touch – or try to, rather. He was sagging harder against her suddenly, body resting heavier than it had moments before and she watched the span of his palm as he stretched his fingers out against her knee. There was an indeterminate pause to his movements, as though he was waiting for her to stall or stop him completely.

"Because I care about you, moron," she murmured as she watched his hand stroke from her knee and up, fingers curling against her leg as he drew her thigh closer and tighter over his hip. The heat of his fingertips dug into muscle and she bit her teeth into her bottom lip rather than make a sound or movement that would encourage him in any way.

Which, really, the rest of her body hated her for...

Because the way he was spreading his palm up the back of her thigh and rubbing was doing insanely pleasant things to the rest of her, starting with the tingling of muscles in her legs and stomach.

"Do ya then?" The sound of a ragged and possibly hysterical chuckle reverberated down her clavicle and she felt her body flare up into how warmly his breath flushed on her, how possessively he'd managed to fit the entire spread of his palm onto her thigh. "Really?"

"Of course I... You can't tell?"

"Love," he slurred a little, letting her lift his jaw carefully as he sighed out and tried to blink the focus back into his eyes, "I can unravel String Theory steadier than I can read your intentions. Y'know that."

"This has to stop," Gill repeated gently over him, nodding the words closer to his mouth as he dazed both his eyes shut and lifted his jaw into the movement. "You can't keep... it needs to stop."

"Am what I am," he snorted sadly, just a rush of words past his lips before he lifted his mouth to hers again, intentionally kissed her harder despite his injuries.

It _was_ blood, she could taste it on his teeth and she slowed his fervor with a palm along his ear and light kisses along the unbruised side of his jaw.

"Then can you scale it back a little, huh?" The whisper went warm over his swollen eye and she let her lips dip lightly just above it. "Because my blood pressure can't keep up with this."

"I scared you." The realization in his voice was muzzy and saddened, the medication mingling with his accent to make him nearly incomprehensible. "M'sorry, Gill. Wasn't... just had to - "

She kissed along his hairline, "Get some sleep."

"Exceptional pillow." His head rubbed back down against her breasts, the shallow rhythm of his breathing evening a pattern of warm breath against the fabric of her shirt. "Might just keep it."

"Goodnight, Cal."

A sated grunt came off his throat and she felt his fingers momentarily dig tighter around her leg, "Night, love."


	2. Chapter 2

It was just a bit of silly, wasn't it? Just playin' with her and messing around and, Christ, hadn't they been kind and gentle with each other lately? In comparison, anyhow? And hadn't they found a balance back toward being the best of pals, a sort of silent and tacit agreement to come back to what they'd been first.

Sure, it'd slowly come after he'd had his arse tidily handed to him, no doubt mumbled a jarbled sort of love confession or something a month before while hospitalized. One he'd be fucked if he could actually remember. But he assumed there had been something along those lines, he assumed he'd probably made a right drug-mumbling ass of himself - because she _had_ been softer, sweeter, less strident in the days after he'd been released from the hospital.

Her voice and touch had incrementally circled back 'round to what they'd known before, actually.

And her eyes were soft again, the way they'd been before, when they'd just had friendship and love and an unsinkable raft of loyalty beneath them.

Them against the world, it'd been.

Lightman and Foster, the lying masses be damned.

Hell, he missed that surety. Ached for it.

But it'd started innocently enough, when she'd teased the very last of the cashew chicken away from him, laughingly and bright. And he'd followed up that giddiness by bombing onto his office couch cushions after her and reaching both arms around her for the coveted Chinese food anyhow, all idiotic and frenetic energy.

Couldn't help enjoying being happy with her again, could he? Even a temporary truce?

He couldn't be blamed for enjoying the pleasure of her laughter once again (or the fact he was cuddled up around her and floating in the scent of her).

Couldn't let that pleasure go, either. Not if just bein' a silly git would get her to at least consider forgiving what an idiotic jackass he'd been for months beforehand.

Couldn't just -

" _Cal_." It was just a whisper, just a little swing and lilt of her voice.

It was nothin', really. Absolutely nothin' (to anyone else).

Anyone else woulda just heard a syllable, a pant of breath on a name.

Well, anyone else didn't have arms full of Gillian Foster, laughing his name through her lips with a tone that dared him to kiss the breath out of her.

S'what he heard anyhow... coulda been mistaken.

"It's late," she murmured, head tipping to angle her jaw back nearer his mouth than he'd expected, her body slumping surprisingly back into his chest as one of his hands caught a slim wrist and curled around it.

"S'always late when we get silly about bad Chinese food, darling." He managed to tip the other hand high, clipping the take-out box from her fingers while he answered. And he was surprised that she hummed a pleased agreement to the movement as he pressed his chest forward and his luck all at once.

"Not that hungry anymore anyhow." Her answer seemed softly innocent, her head turning back just enough to damn him completely. Her hands both fell to his forearms and any process of thought he may have had screeched to a thunderous halt.

Because her nose rubbed encouragingly against his stubbled cheek in a way that was more than sweet or affectionate.

It was bloody fucking adorable.

And he'd seen plenty of Gillian being adorable. But this had a wicked sense of sensuality to it, too - as though she'd somehow tricked him right into wrapping himself around her and angling his jaw down into the bend between her neck and shoulder.

"Gill?"

"Yes."

Wasn't a question in her voice, wasn't a response.

If he knew females at all, with any sort of accuracy, that - he knew for an ever-lovin' fact - was permission.

Was all the permission he needed to groan his mouth down the sleek line of her throat and suck against perfumed tanged skin, tasting on her while manicured nails dug into one forearm, the other hand stroking encouragement up and down ink. He felt the sound she made under his tongue, felt the valved way it hummed up her throat, all sexy and vibrating with promise as her head tipped him more space. Cal smiled into that vibration of sound, felt his mouth curve the smile up behind her ear as though it had a mind of its own, his teeth nipping along her earlobe without censure. A whimper came off her that made every second of his life, up to that moment, make a perfect sort of sense.

Had to get through all that to get to this, hadn't they?

"Took you years to do that," she hummed the words quietly, hands vicing on his forearms and ensuring that he didn't move away, didn't question her agreement, didn't go anywhere else. "Worth it, though."

He made damn sure that it didn't take more than a millisecond to repeat it.


End file.
